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She stopped trying to touch aze darted over her shoulder and her entire body went rigid “Alexis, let’s clear this up”

“Clear what up?” Alexis stepped farther into the roo at Jules like she had no idea what she was talking about

“What does Alexis have to do with this? Stop trying to drag her into everything”

Jules whipped around “Is that what you think I’?”

“What else am I supposed to think?”

“Then here’s so for you to think about when it co me—” Jules took a deep breath and sed “Then how’d I know about the present? The one that apparently means so much to you, but you’ve never shown me I don’t knohy Alexis would want to set me up, but that’s exactly what she did”

Doubt jabbed at the back of my mind

Alexis edged closer to me “Berk, remember what happened with Gretchen?”

Gretchen was a girl I’d dated for a little bit senior year of high school, who’d never liked Alexis Startedwild accusations about Alexis until I’d had to end things It had hurt A deep down kind of hurt that I hadn’t wanted to revisit again

“Why would Alexis lie?”

Jules clutched her hands in front of her face “Why would I?” Her gaze swung to Alexis, but her words were trained on ht toyou’ve worked for, for someone who doesn’t treat you the way they should People ant the best for us don’t try to cut us off from other people who love us”

With tears in her eyes, she gave me one last look “Bye, Berk” She fled the room and down the steps The patter of her feet left bruises on my heart with each step An anchor rapped around ot ingon the inky blackness of the waves,for relief

“Hey, Jules,” Keyton called out from downstairs “Where’s Berk?”

And then the door sla so loudly in ht Her smile The way she rested her head on ers down ainst hers The nervous way she pushed up her glasses right before I took a bite of soone Wiped away

I tried to blink back the tears Tears I hadn’t let fall since I was eight But I couldn’t hold the tide crashed into my chest and wrenched away the threadbare hold I had on myself